


charlie follows the golden track to nyc

by yellowbeesknees



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Cheeks - Freeform, DPS, Dead Poets Society - Freeform, M/M, charlie is bicon, is cheeks their ship name?, meeks is a functional gay, please i just can't fucking stop rewatching dps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:28:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24879991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellowbeesknees/pseuds/yellowbeesknees
Summary: Charlie's sold his house and quit his job, been to the Hellton cave to consult the gods of poetry, and he's found Meeks's possible current address (although he hasn't recieved a letter in a few years, what can he say, banking gets in the way sometimes).Now he's on his way to New York City to confront his ghosts and live life to the fullest, he's going to learn how to suck the marrow out of life, and Meeks is going to teach him.
Relationships: Charlie Dalton/Steven Meeks
Kudos: 12





	charlie follows the golden track to nyc

**Author's Note:**

> yes i know nothing about america. shut the fuck up.  
> also i might update this with another part soon, or maybe three, depends how much content i think there is in this

He ran his thumb down the torn ridge of ‘Understanding Poetry’, looking out of the window across the grounds. They were shadowed, dark, the pale, luminescent moon hanging like a wide, white face in the top panels of the window. The haggard grounds-keeper was watching him sullenly out of rheumy eyes sunken into his pallid, drawn face, jangling his keys pointedly, wanting to lock up. It had been stupid to come here, to traverse the cold and empty house, with stairwells which no longer sung with the traffic of children, the night no longer ringing with their stifled shouts, even after curfew. 

Charlie nodded his thanks to the man and fumbled down the steps in the grey dark, clutching his satchel close under one arm. Side by side, between folds of brown leather, ‘Understanding Poetry’ and ‘Five Centuries of Verse’, nestled close to the bounce of his leg as he bounded over the wet, moonlit grass, hefting his bag uncomfortably on his shoulder as it spun him slightly off course with the weight of it.

The forest was blue, like the night they had first run, all dark hoods pulled up and steaming breath. His lone torchlight bounced through the blue fog, chasing phantoms of past beams. The haunted echoes of panting breaths, stumbling feet, cracking twigs. Meeks’s chanting mantra of humming song still weaving between the trees towards him. ‘Then I saw the Congo, creeping though the black, cutting through the forest with a golden track.’ The golden track stretched out before him now, glowing memory, shining bright, spun gold beneath his lone, silver torchlight.

He had come to the woods because he wanted to live deliberately, not, upon coming to die, find that he had not lived at all.

The golden track lead him to the mouth of the cave, glimmering in the stab of moonlight that shot through the clearing above, turning the twisted trees into glowing white bones clawing out of the earth. His fingers dug into the soft grit at the entrance and he peered inside to the circular room. He couldn’t for the life of him remember how they had all fit through that tiny gap. He had to push his bag in first and then follow it head first, landing in a heap on the floor below the moon, streaming through the hole in the rocky roof. He grinned at the familiar feel of it against his skin.

All the haunting echoes seemed louder here. Neil’s voice especially, repeating the mantra of the Dead Poets Society, passed down to them by Mr Keating. He screwed his eyes up tight. “Yes, yes I know, I’m doing what you told me.” He had come to the forest to live deliberately.

He knelt beneath the stars and the moon, ‘Five Centuries of Verse’ lying on the rock before him. It was prayer, it was worship, it was coming home. He had not come to the woods to die, he had come here to learn, to live. He sat, cross legged (though soon his legs grew numb and sore), and read the book from front to back, lingering fingers brushing every page, every fragile letter.

When dawn broke and the birds began to leave, Charlie left the cave. 

The golden track was made of sunlight, he followed it back to the lake, dusted pink with the fringe of dawn, birds taking flight through the mist. The school was glowing with a hesitant blush, empty eyeless windows wishing him one last goodbye. He was going to suck the marrow out of life.

He arrived home several hours later, dog tired and already ready to leave again. The house was already sold, his things waiting for him in the hall. He said one final goodbye to the empty whitewash walls and hurried his meagre bags through the rain to the car. His last possessions stowed away in the boot, he turned the key and didn’t look back.

Charlie arrived in New York City a few weeks later, looking a little weathered and with a trucker’s arm. The massive buildings towered around him, hemming him in all sides, but it was the freest he’d ever felt. It was a far cry from the silent, squat, white houses by his old house, or the ones that surrounded Hellton. It was all grandeur, glass and concrete, brick monstrosities that tried to tear out the guts of the sky, and yet it was the most beautiful thing Charlie had ever seen.

The plan he had vaguely set in motion upon selling his house and involved thumbing through piles of old letters, finding the most recent addresses of friends until deciding there was only really one he wanted to see. Meeks’s address was written on a now sun-faded slip of paper tucked into his wind-shield behind the wheel, watching him as he meandered, lost, through the streets of New York.

He sighed, shaking his head, and turned into the car-park of the first hotel he saw, deciding it was probably best if he didn’t turn up with all his worldly possessions at the possible address of a man he hadn’t seen in years. He didn’t want to count the years, he bet Meeks had done that for him. Years since he had been kicked out of Hellton.

It was easier to catch his bearings on foot, he clutched the paper between his fingers, turning it absent-mindedly, looking around at the shops and skyscrapers and monoliths of NYC. It was awe inspiring.

Meeks did not live where Charlie would imagine and he got the distinct impression his friend hadn’t had to go to some creepy cave to suck the marrow out of life. It was a street full of life, clubs lined the road, most of them gay bars which Charlie raised his eyes at, he hadn’t thought Meeks was the type, but, then again, he hadn’t thought he, Charlie, was the type. He hoped that the last address he had for Meeks was still the correct one, and that he was correct in his assumption that Meeks was a fellow gay man, as that would make it easier to come out to him, rather than all the other times he had had to come out. 

He sucked in a breath, holding his index finger over the buzzer, scared to press it but still delighted to see the faded letters which read ‘Steven Meeks’ beside the appropriate button. He hovered for a second more, then rang it. Biting his lip, he folded up the paper and stuffed it in his pocket, tapping his foot impatiently as the silence on the other side of the door endured.

“Hello? Can I help you?” asked a voice from behind him.

He twisted on the spot and his face split into a shocked grin. “Meeks!”

“Char?” Meeks dropped the shopping he was holding in shock. “What the fuck?”

He smirked, biting back a laugh. “Hello, I thought I’d pop round to see you.”

“What the hell are you doing in New York?” Meeks was still staring at him, his face flushed as he glanced up and down the street in embarrassment. “Sorry about the… neighbours.”

Charlie shrugged, still smirking. “I don’t mind Meeks, I’m bi anyway, maybe they’ll come in useful now I know where they are.”

A slow grin was spreading across his face, and he pushed his glasses up properly. “You scared me so much,” he whined, picking up his shopping and pushing passed Charlie with the key. They shuffled into the landing and then up a flight of stairs to Meeks’s apartment. “How long are you here for?”

“I don’t know. I sold my house, I might stay here, I might not.”

Meeks blinked at him. “I’ve got a spare room,” he said suddenly, “where are you staying? Don’t stay in some hotel, come and stay here! We practically lived together for years when we were in Hellton, I don’t mind.”

“Did you hear they shut it down? Welton I mean. I went there a few weeks ago, saw the old cave, but it’s so quiet, just a grounds-keeper.”

He smiled at him softly. “It was like that after you left, it felt so empty, it felt so empty after Neil.” Meeks set his shopping down on the table, regarding Charlie quietly for a moment. “It’s been so long, I missed you. I… I’m glad you’re here Charlie.”

“Me too, I’m ready to suck the marrow out of life, I’m done with living life shallowly working as a banker in some dreary little office. Show me New York Meeks, show me how to live again. Show me the golden track that cuts through the forest.” He cocked his head and grinned. “Show me.”

**Author's Note:**

> sorry this is a bit short, i haven't been writing much ff recently


End file.
